Sky Sports pundit fancies Raheem Sterling to enjoy record-breaking season

Sky Sports pundit Danny Higginbotham has backed Raheem Sterling to eclipse his goalscoring count from the previous campaign. The England international has shown good progress under the guidance of Pep Guardiola over the past two years and the previous season witnessed his best-ever campaign after contributing 23 goals across all competitions for the club.

He has continued the good run this term with seven goals in all competitions already and Higginbotham believes Sterling has the capacity of eclipsing the previous season’s feat with a 30-goal season, he said: “People still say his finishing isn’t great and we still talk about him missing chances, but this is a player who scored 23 goals last season playing as a winger more often than not.

“If that finishing does get better I believe he can get 30 goals this season, not a problem at all. If he misses a chance, he has no problem with it because he’ll go back, get the opportunity again and put it in the back of the net. I think he’ll break the record he set for himself last season of 23 goals and I think he’ll be pushing 30 plus this season.”

Sterling’s future has come into question during the start of the previous campaign with reports that he could be involved in a swap agreement to sign Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal. However, manager Pep Guardiola dismissed the speculation outright and the former Liverpool man has gone from strength-to-strength to become one of the manager’s reliable players.

Earlier this term, there had been the speculation regarding Sterling’s future with his contract expiring during the summer of 2020 but that has now been resolved with the Citizens committing him for the next five seasons. Sterling was an unused substitute during England’s 3-0 friendly win over the United States of America but he is expected to feature from the off when the Three Lions face Croatia in the final group game of the Nations League.